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The Secret Library High Above Grand Central

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A small, undigitized collection, the Williamson Library gives insight into the earliest days of New York’s High Line.

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Sitting largely unnoticed in a secluded spot above the Apple Store, the Williamson Library is a private research collection housed inside Grand Central Terminal. Facing the main concourse, the library was founded by Frederick Ely Williamson, the president of the once-mighty New York Central Railroad (NYCR) in the 1930s and 1940s. The library can be visited only by appointment. Once the appointment is made you have to meet the sole librarian in spy-like fashion at the concourse’s clock; from there you will be led through the station’s rafters to two anonymous gunmetal gray doors, beyond which lies an archive of more than 3,000 railroad-related books, periodicals, and objects.

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High Line: The Inside Story of New York City’s Park in the Sky

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